Re: Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

From: Mark Galeotti <hia15_at_i6gUSFRCFgscT9EaV4k5tKbXx1wEka4MpGwRRO1eygFKj8HQOabsEKRYigl2rPkpABaTvS>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 21:27:30 -0000

• In ImmoderateHeroQuest_at_yahoogroups.com, "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_s...> wrote:
  >
  > Historically, Russia (whether called "Imperial Russia" or "The
  Soviet Union"
  > has had designs on central Asia including Afghanistan since before
  the time
  > of Victoria. They have long considered it part of their plans to
  integrate
  > Afghanistan (and India) into their empire (whatever form that
  empire takes).
  >
  > The 'great game' that Kipling refers to in Kim (he did *not*
  originate the
  > term, btw) was played out between the British and the Russians on
  the Plains
  > and Mountains of Central Asia. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
  was just
  > the latest move in the game.
  

Well, by the same token we should have expected British Tommies there, too. What, Britain's stratgeic interests and capabilities were different in 1979 than 1879? Concidentally, the same was true of the Russians. Afghanistan's only real value is as a gateway to India or the Middle East; if you lack the desire to invade further, then there's no positive reason to invade Afghanistan -- instead there are the negative ones of not seeing a neighbour fall to fundamentalist Islam and suffer the humiliation of a notional ally collapsing with Moscow appearing unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

(And it is worth mentioning that not only was Moscow surprised by the leftist coup in Afghanistan, they were dismayed by it. They had got on perfectly well on a prgamtaic basis with the previous regime.)

>(it's also why Russia is fighting so hard in
> places like Chechnya and all the -stans).

The difference with Chechnya (and BTW, the Chechens are a hell of a lot tougher than the Afghans, for whom Kipling did the best PR job ever) is that the Russians cosnider it part of their country, in a way Afghanistan never was. Let Chechnya go, the argument goes, and tomorrow it'll be Ingushetia and Dagestan and next week the whole Far East (which now has much tigher economic ties with China than European Russia)...

And then you get domestic politics; Putin won his first presidential election as the man who was going to win Chechnya, so he has a certain vested interest in the war.

All the best

Mark